Frank Shu

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Frank Shu

Frank Shu (Chinese: 徐 遐 生) (born June 2, 1943 in Kunming ) is an American astrophysicist of Chinese descent.

Shu was born in Kunming, China, and came to the United States when he was six, growing up in Chicago and West Lafayette . He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963 . He earned his doctorate in astronomy in 1968 from Harvard University , after which he taught for five years at SUNY Stony Brook . In 1972 he received a research grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation ( Sloan Research Fellowship ). Shu was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1973 to 2002 , and he headed its astronomy department from 1984 to 1988. From 2002 to 2006 he was President of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan . He has been a professor emeritus since 2006 at the University of California, San Diego .

From 1994 to 1996 Shu was President of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

Shu worked as a theorist on topics such as the origin of meteorites, formation and early evolution of stars, mass transfer in tight binary stars, and the structure of spiral galaxies. While still a student, he and Chia-Chiao Lin developed the theory of spiral arms in galaxies, known as density wave theory . In 1977 he published a model for the formation of a star through the collapse of a spherical gas cloud in the core of a molecular cloud .

Fonts (selection)

  • The Physical Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy. University Science Books, Mill Valley 1982, ISBN 0-935702-05-9 .

Honors

Web links

Commons : Frank Shu  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Shu, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shu, Frank H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese-American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Kunming